We went to Beijing first, then we travelled by plane to Zhenzhou where a minibus picked us up. We travelled by bus to Luoyang

Name of Hotel:

Peony Hotel

Comments about Hotel:

Perfectly adequate, though nothing to write home about. The staff was very attentive once the babies arrived.

Office or Orphanage:

Luoyang Social Welfare Institute

Sights to See in this city:

MANY. The Longman caves are the big attraction. This is an enormous collection of grottoes with Buddhist statuary in them carved out of the side of a hill. This is considered a major tourist draw in China to other Chinese. It was beautiful. Also the White Horse Temple, the first Chinese Buddhist Temple and home of Chinese Buddhism. (Luoyang is the birthplace of Buddhism in China.) The Luoyang Municipal Museum is also a very interesting place, as Luoyang is very historically significant. Unfortunately, many of the unique finds in Luoyang were taken from the Museum and transported to larger cities in China, as Luoyang is now so out of the way to many tourists. But it was once the capital of China, and was a very important city in about the year 800.

Baby supplies can be purchased at:

We did not purchase any baby supplies, but I believe they are somewhat hard to find in Luoyang. There are two department stores that I know of. One we were taken to, and I don't know the name nor could I find it alone. The other one was right down the street from the hotel.

Places to eat we liked:

We loved eating everywhere we went (except for one restaurant that was just so cold inside.) But all the food was wonderful, even the hotel restaurant. We often ate lunch at the "Fragrance and Elegance Restaurant" which was wonderful. We usually ate lunch out and dinner in the hotel, as one of the children was sick and our guide was being very careful with the rest of the babies.

Things you ought to know while staying here:

When we stayed there in 1996, there were NO cribs in the hotel, nor was there any furniture that could easily be turned into a crib. There weren't even any large drawers in the room, everything was shelving. Some members of our group took two easy chairs and stuck them together for the babies, but that didn't seem to work too well. We brought BIG suitcases, and we lined them with a bedspread for our daughter's bed. She slept in it quite comfortably. In fact she was the only baby in the group who DID sleep, but that might just have been temperament.